Document Type

Book Chapter

Publication Date

4-25-2025

Keywords

development, imitation, infant, newborns, perceptual-cognition

Disciplines

Child Psychology | Cognition and Perception | Developmental Psychology

Abstract

Today imitation (i.e., copying another’s behaviors) is recognized as the fundamental mechanism by which cultural knowledge is socially transmitted across generations (Gergely & Csibra, 2006). Indeed, inquiries into children’s imitation have been at the forefront of developmental science nearly since its inception. Piaget suggested that at its core, imitation acted as the child’s representation of self-in-action before the representation of self-in-thought (Piaget & Inhelder, 1966/1969). While Piaget discussed the presence of reflexive imitation within the first months of life (e.g., a baby crying upon hearing another baby’s cry), he reasoned that children could not imitate others’ gestures until the end of the first year due to cognitive immaturity and lack of social experience. While at Oxford and the University of Washington respectively, Andrew Meltzoff and M. Keith Moore evaluated newborns’ imitative competence, and in doing so, provided evidence for humans’ innate ability to match their own unobservable behaviors to the abstract actions performed by others. By conducting the first series of empirical investigations of newborn imitation, Meltzoff and Moore (1977) altered the predominant view of infants’ perceptual-cognition at the time, emphasizing the role of imitation at both the individual- and species-level.

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